Despite pleasant weather and the efforts of candidates who crisscrossed the city for weeks, just 11 percent of enrolled Democrats went to the polls.

The primary was also marked by a political anomaly: more people cast their ballots for public advocate and comptroller than for mayor.

More than 347,000 Democrats voted in Tuesday’s five-way primary for public advocate and more than 352,000 in the four-way race for comptroller, but some 312,000 voted in the mayoral contest.

To be sure, William C. Thompson Jr., the city comptroller,
was expected to win the party’s nomination for mayor easily, while the other citywide races were fiercely competitive. Moreover, Mr. Thompson has been husbanding his resources for the general election race.

“Voters see the November election as the day when their votes for mayor will really count,” said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog group.

“Yesterday’s record low turnout reflects two things: a failure on the part of Bill Thompson to inspire New Yorkers and a comfort level among voters with the direction this city is going under Mike Bloomberg’s
leadership,” Jill Hazelbaker, a Bloomberg campaign spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

In response, a spokeswoman for Mr. Thompson, Carly Lindauer, said: “We believe voter turnout will be higher in November when — exactly a year to the day that he acted in his own self-interest by overturning term
limits — voters have a chance to tell Republican Mike Bloomberg that eight years is enough.”